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A cold front called a "back door front" moved in from the northeast Saturday afternoon, resulting in a fast 20-degree temperature drop.(Photo: Courtesy of National Weather Service)

If Milwaukee area residents were enjoying the pleasant weather in shorts early Saturday afternoon, they might have been reaching for a sweatshirt a little while later.

Temperatures in Milwaukee dropped from 75 degrees to 55 within an hour, according to the National Weather Service in Sullivan. It’s due to a chilly phenomenon weather experts call a “back door front” or a “pneumonia front.”

A cold front speeding south down the length of Wisconsin travels faster through Lake Michigan than by land, weather service meteorologist Marcia Cronce said. Those cold, gusty winds swept into the Milwaukee area Saturday afternoon from the northeast, aided by the chilly lake water.

The lake’s surface temperature is about 46 or 47 degrees — lower than normal, even for a Wisconsin June.

And temperatures won’t recover too much for Father’s Day, Cronce said. The cold northeasterly winds will continue to blow steadily through Sunday, keeping highs in the low 60s with some solid cloud cover.

“We could stay in this cloudy pattern with nothing to kick it out,” Cronce said. “It might feel like fall.”

And your worries about rain? It’s hard to say exactly what might happen Sunday — meteorologists are eyeing slow-moving storms in Iowa and southeastern Minnesota to determine how strong the system will be once it hits Wisconsin.

But Cronce said the best chance for rain will be south of Milwaukee overnight. Come daytime, a few sprinkles are possible, but severe weather is unlikely. The system should weaken as it drags across the state.

So yes, Cronce said it’s starting out as a cold summer in Wisconsin. But it’s too early to tell if we’re doomed to jeans and sweatshirts all summer long. In the meantime, keep the umbrella handy: the weather service predicts some on-and-off showers in the coming work week.

Contact Sophie Carson at (414) 223-5512 or scarson@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @SCarson_News.

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